SaferProducts incident

Failure type

Fire / ignition

Incident narrative

SaferProducts.gov consumer incident report 20141128-95DBD-2147438463. Severity: Incident, No Injury. Product: Cub Cadet LTX1045 - I3WX91AT056 (Cub Cadet LTX1045 46" 20hp Hydro riding lawn tractor. White and yellow color.). Incident: On Saturday 11/22/14, my 16 year old grandson was cutting our lawn and mulching up the last few leaves in the yard for the final time this season with our 2 year old Cub Cadet LTX1045 riding lawn tractor. He has used this lawn tractor for the past two years every week, so he is very familiar with how this mower operates. When he was done cutting the grass, he parked the lawn tractor by the rear door to the house, shut it off, and went inside. Within less than a minute he was in the kitchen and happened to look out the window and observed light smoke coming from the front of the lawn tractor. He immediately went outside, pulled out the hydrostatic bypass rod to put the lawn tractor in freewheel mode, and then pushed the mower approximately 50 feet away from the house while yelling to my wife (who was outside in the yard at the time) that the mower was on fire. He also opened the hood to see what was burning. He observed a very small fire from somewhere underneath the front of the engine with light smoke coming from it. The outside water was turned off for the winter, so my wife went inside and filled a pan of water, gave it to my grandson, and he threw it on the engine. It seemed to help a little, so they got more water and threw it on the engine. They then realized that the smoke was increasing and the small fire was not going out. My grandson ran across the street to where I was visiting and told me that the lawnmower was on fire. I went with him immediately, and as we approached my house I told my grandson where the fire extinguishers were in the house and said to go in t